Bend leaders want an unnamed person or persons to stop putting googly eyes on public art mainly in roundabouts throughout the city.
“While the googly eyes placed on the various art pieces around town might give you a chuckle, it costs money to remove them with care to not damage the art,” city officials wrote on Bend’s Facebook page last week.
The city has spent $600 to remove the adhesive from the metal sculptures, and city officials estimate $900 will be spent to remove googly eyes from the “Phoenix Rising” piece located at Galveston and 14th Street on the west side of Bend. The lofted art piece will require a ladder to reach the eyes, and the piece’s red paint may need to be refinished said assistant city manager Stephanie Betteridge.
A copy of the art piece is located within the city’s mountain bike trail system and is often adorned with colored beads, according to Bend’s tourism website.
Kathryn Steyer Martinez
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OPB
David Pritchard, an artist and recent transplant to Bend, said he thinks the expression is quirky. But if the googly eyes are damaging the art, “then I’d have a problem with it,” he said.
The Bend Police Department said it has not received any complaints about the plastic additions to the public art, and there are no open investigations about the incidents.
In total eight sculptures were modified, in addition to a few murals, but the city does not manage the murals. There have been previous reports of sculptures being decorated with Christmas garb in the past, but the googly eyes are a newer development.
“While we don’t condone the wreaths, leis and Santa hats, let’s stay away from adhesives, graffiti and all things that can damage the art,” a city representative wrote on Facebook.
The city is asking people to not adorn public art but especially not to use adhesives that might cause damage.
Bend has 27 pieces of public art placed in roundabouts throughout the city according to Bend’s tourism website. One piece, “Crossroads” is not listed, said Betteridge. Most installations are in the southeast quadrant of the town and pieces range from abstract to functional to literal.
Kathryn Steyer Martinez
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OPB
One piece named “Cogs” is a rusty brown colored set of cog-shaped planter boxes, while another named “Lodestar” is a bronze conceptual geometric shape that frames the mountains beyond Bend, according to VisitBend’s website. Some of the modified sculptures in question were mule deer, representative of the animals often seen in parks and front yards.
Over 300 comments were made on the Facebook post in the past week – most skewering the city for posting about what commenters perceived as a trivial matter.
Copyright 2024, OPB
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
